Vinotemp has been building premium wine cabinets for over 20 years. Since 1985, they have sold approximately 250,000 wine cellars in the U.S. and overseas. Francis Ravel was the innovator and creator of Vinotemp and a man ahead of his time. He began his venture by selling and making his own wine. This is where he was first introduced to the idea of placing a cooling unit into a sealed wine cabinet.In the beginning he had one factory making the wine cabinets, and another making the cooling systems. Francis then began manufacturing the wine cabinets himself. In 1999 he decided to ameliorate the problems with the current wine cooling system. With better components he created the Wine Mate cooling unit; the only UL approved wine cooling system. His daughter worked with him for 15 years and is now the President of Vinotemp.